May 2015
On March 3, 1807, President Thomas Jefferson signed into act a bill approved by Congress the day before “to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States.” Three weeks later, on the 25th, the British House of Lords passed an Act for the Abolition of The Slave Trade.
This website, of the New York Public Library, provides resources for exploring the various dimensions and consequences, and the impact of decisions made and actions taken or not taken on four continents two centuries ago. It offers insights into the slave trade to the United States, African resistance, abolitionism, the U.S. Constitution and the Slave Trade Acts, 19th century African-American celebrations of the 1807 Act, the illegal slave trade, the campaign to revive the trade, and the end of the Africans’ deportation.
Albert Laporte, Récits de vieux marins. , (Paris: Librairie Théodore Lefèvre, 1883)
The Library Company of Philadelphia.
With the help of the essays, books, articles, maps, and illustrations gathered on this site, it becomes clear that the story of the eradication of the international slave trade to the Americas was not straightforward. It did not happen overnight because laws were passed. It was a long, arduous, and tortuous process that spanned almost nine decades. Ultimately, a conjunction of economic, political, social, and moral factors contributed to the slow extinction of the legal slave trade and the end of the illegal introductions that, in several countries, had taken its place. Check the website! The history of abolition is also available at The Abolition Project and in Spanish at the UN website.
Read about slaves and slavery in Portuguese and English HCS-Manguinhos:
Read, Ian. A triumphant decline?: Tetanus among slaves and freeborn in Brazil. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Dec 2012, vol.19, suppl.1, p.107-132. ISSN 0104-5970
Kodama, Kaori et al. Slave mortality during the cholera epidemic in Rio de Janeiro (1855-1856): a preliminary analysis. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Dez 2012, vol.19, suppl.1, p.59-79. ISSN 0104-5970
Kodama, Kaori. Antislavery and epidemic Mathieu François Maxime Audouard’s “O tráfico dos negros considerado como a causa da febre amarela” and the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1850. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Jun 2009, vol.16, no.2, p.515-520. ISSN 0104-5970
Pôrto, Ângela. The healthcare system for slaves in nineteenth-century Brazil: disease, institutions, and treatment practices. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Dez 2006, vol.13, no.4, p.1019-1027. ISSN 0104-5970
Marquese, Rafael de Bivar. A Ilustração luso-brasileira e a circulação dos saberes escravistas caribenhos: a montagem da cafeicultura brasileira em perspectiva comparada. Hist. cienc. saude-Manguinhos, Dez 2009, vol.16, no.4, p.855-880. ISSN 0104-5970
Also see our special issue about health and slavery.
